Man in the News; From Doodles to Clintons -- Simmie Lee Knox

By LYNETTE CLEMETSON

Published: June 15, 2004

WASHINGTON, June 14—
It was more than 50 years ago that a blinding sunspot, an ill-timed turn and the whack of a whizzing baseball left Simmie Knox with a badly bruised and wandering eye.

To ease his recovery, someone suggested that the teenager take up a hobby that would retrain the muscles in his eye. He had always liked doodling, so the young Mr. Knox started to draw.

On Monday, Mr. Knox, now 68 and the first African-American commissioned to paint a presidential portrait, thought back fondly on that freak accident as his portraits of former president and first lady Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton were unveiled at a White House ceremony. During the ceremony, Mr. Clinton cited Mr. Knox's career as ''a part of America's promise.''

Mr. Knox describes his professional journey as a series of fortuitous setbacks and discoveries. ''It has happened many times for me,'' the painter said in an interview after the morning's events. ''Things that I thought were liabilities turned out to be assets.''

In the years following his accident, his eye recovered and Mr. Knox took to drawing all the time. He tried his hand at comic strips and rendered portraits of his girlfriend on paper napkins. Still, for the son of a carpenter and mechanic growing up in segregated Alabama, art didn't seem like a viable way to make a living. So after a three-year stint in the Army, Mr. Knox decided to go to college and major in biology.

Mr. Knox's grades in his major weren't too impressive, but his illustrations of amoebas and other organisms caught the attention of his teachers, who gently urged him toward art. His first real painting was a self-portrait in pastel, which he completed during college in 1961.

''I think we are all born with a program in place,'' he said. ''Many people ignore it or don't pay attention to it, but some people are lucky enough to access it.''

Still, it took him another several years, and another twist of fate, to settle into a career as a portraitist. Though his real love was portraiture, many of his contemporaries considered the style passé. At Temple University's Tyler School of Art, where he completed his bachelor's and master's degrees in fine art, abstract art was the rage.

Mr. Knox began a successful career as an abstract painter. He gained entree into Washington art circles in 1971 when his work was exhibited at a contemporary American painting show at the Corcoran Gallery of Art along with such notable artists as Roy Lichtenstein and Philip Pearlstein.

Yet, he said: ''With abstract painting I didn't feel the challenge. The face is the most complicated thing there is. The challenge is finding that thing, that makes it different from another face.''

He continued painting portraits when he could, but it wasn't until he lost his job as an art teacher in 1980 that he received the creative push he needed. To make a living, he began devoting more time to portraits and in 1986 a curator introduced him to the comedian Bill Cosby.

''He told me to just focus on my craft, and he'd make sure work came my way,'' he said. ''He gave me the opportunity I needed to practice, practice, practice.''

In addition to several portraits of Mr. Cosby and his family, Mr. Knox has painted the Supreme Court Justices Thurgood Marshall and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the boxer Muhammad Ali and the baseball player Hank Aaron, who went to high school with Mr. Knox. It was Justice Ginsburg who recommended Mr. Knox to the Clintons.

''He paints beautiful faces that really say something to you,'' said Betty C. Monkman, chief White House curator during the Clinton administration. Mr. Clinton interviewed Mr. Knox in December 2000 and hired him just before leaving office. Though the two met several times before the portrait was completed in the fall of 2002, the artist worked primarily from photographs taken in the Oval Office.

Mr. Knox, who is based in Silver Spring, Md., and whose commission fees range from $9,500 to $60,000, said the fact that both he and Mr. Clinton came from poor Southern roots gave him a special feel for the man. (He declined to reveal his fee for the Clintons' portraits.)

The pose for Mr. Clinton's portrait, standing and looking directly forward, was the most sensible approach to capturing his style, Mr. Knox said. He takes great pride in how the eyes lock on the viewer from any vantage point and seem to move with the viewer across the room.

Mr. Clinton is ''a very straightforward guy,'' Mr. Knox said, adding, ''His attitude is sort of, take me as I am, and that's what I wanted to portray.''

Though he said he was pleased with the paintings, he also was relieved that the process was over.

''For three years I've been extremely nervous,'' he said. ''But today, I put it to rest. I will sleep tonight.''

Hobbies: Jazz, reading and painting things less demanding than portraits, like flowers and landscapes.

Photo: Simmie Knox's portraits of Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton were unveiled yesterday at a White House ceremony. Mr. Knox, 68, is the first African-American commissioned to paint a presidential portrait. (Photo by Stephen Crowley/The New York Times)